Gordon in the morning: Footballing metaphors

According to this morning's Bizarre, Chris Martin feels that Coldplay are the Manchester United of pop:

“I was talking to my dad about Manchester United — the most popular football team in the world — and when they show up at West Ham they get booed.

“I was thinking, ‘Well, it’s the same for us’.”

Surely it's not, though? Manchester United get booed by the crowd at the West Ham because they're playing in front of a crowd that, for a large part, actively support a different team. If Coldplay turned up to somehow try and beat, say, Kasabian in a competition, you'd expect the Kasabian supporters too boo the other side.

I don't really follow football, but even I wouldn't expect opposition supporters to cheer Manchester United just because they're more popular than the team that they follow.

The Manchester United comparison is apt, though: they, too, have a massive following which comprises mainly of people with no emotional connection but who, thinking they should support someone, have simply picked the winning team.